


Capital Grounds

by Catznetsov



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Dom/sub, Fluff and Humor, I feel strongly this is a thing, M/M, Pre-OT3, background Nicklas Backstrom/Alexander Ovechkin - Freeform, eye-contact averse doms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 17:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12347565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catznetsov/pseuds/Catznetsov
Summary: The love of TJ’s winter comes in several afternoons a week to buy a small Swedish coffee and something from their pastry case while TJ gazes at him.





	Capital Grounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegraceinyoureyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraceinyoureyes/gifts).



> Hey, thegraceinyoureyes--
> 
> The words “coffee shop AU” and “(deeply, deeply subby) TJ Oshie” struck a major chord in me. I hope many stories on this important theme are being written.
> 
> (Actually: I was too intimidated to write TJ/Nicky(/Ovi) for my main story! I’m sure you understand I had to take another shot at it.)
> 
> Capitol Grounds is the coffeeshop across from my state's Legislature, targeted at moderately crunchy liberal senate staffers. I assumed the Caps' coffeeshop is like that but with a dumber name.

The love of TJ’s winter comes in several afternoons a week to buy a small Swedish coffee and something from their pastry case while TJ gazes at him.

Theoretically Evgeny’s scheduled for the counter most of those shifts, but it’s an as-yet untested thesis. TJ isn’t technically qualified to be a shift supervisor, much less functionally run this coffee shop, but he is at least the only one who understands Swedish coffee, having grown up cooking with grandparents in Minnesota. So TJ makes Evgeny clean the milk dispenser and then go back to bother Braden with new muffin concepts, and does his paperwork upfront until his favorite exchange student comes through the door.

 

“That’ll be three dollars, ninety-five cents,” TJ says. Somehow when he talks to Nicklas, who’s obviously competent in English but carries the edge of another language all the time, or when he used to talk to the old-time aunties and uncles, part of him always thinks he can speak a second language too, and they’ll know he means something secret.

In this case he means, ‘may I please blow you in our back parking lot?’

“Okay,” Nicklas says, smiling a tiny smile at the counter, which might as well be an extension of TJ’s soul.

“Thanks!” TJ says perkily, which means, ‘I’d say thank you if you pulled my hair.’

 

“I’m going to have to report you to the manager again,” Braden says, blowing past on a cloud of beautiful carrot-scented warm air. “You’re staring.”

“That’s fair. Noted. Thanks, babe,” TJ says, and hunts around for a Post-It to stick to his chest.

 

TJ's favorite customer buses his own table and scoops up cups left sitting empty on any table between him and the dish bin without making a production of it. He can stack plates and mugs and their little soup cups like a magic trick so they can leave it twice as long and customers can still find space, and he always pauses thoughtfully between the recycling and the trash and commits to his decisions, even with the tricky things like plastic coffee stirrers.

Evgeny doesn’t do half of that, and he allegedly works for TJ.

TJ rustles up a piece of cardboard and writes a cute sign to identify the biodegradable plastic lids and coffee stirrers. The next day he definitely thinks Nicklas might have smiled at him.

 

Not everyone is ready to hear TJ’s argument that a hockey season is the perfect narrative framing device for falling in love. Or like, only a few of the more terrible hockey dudes TJ’s known, and they’re missing the point too. It’s about commitment. There’s a sincere and, like, profound, unspoken kind of love you need to get you through a Minnesota winter.

And sure, TJ might have chosen to move to Minnesota, and also chosen to leave as an adult, but some things stay with you when you come from somewhere that cold and straightforward. On some fundamental level he doesn’t feel whatever it is that other people feel that makes them say loving more people means you love each of them less.

 

Usually Nicklas leaves for class with his coffee, but sometimes he sits at the first table against the wall in front of the counter and the pastry case. TJ can coax him into giving quiet, clear, strictly itemized feedback on the proper composition of cinnamon rolls.

TJ has never cared more about cinnamon rolls than he does right now, listening to Nicklas explain with inspirational intensity what they should be. At the same time he really doesn’t care about cinnamon rolls right now.

Braden always cares.

TJ is, in fact, a competent shift manager. He knows when everyone’s in and out and where they are in the kitchen or the backroom at any moment without a second’s thought. And he does try very hard to only be in love after 5 PM, when Braden heads out. Unfortunately Marcus’ bike has apparently blown a tire again, and Braden agreed to come back to drive him home, so he’s looming shadowed in the doorway, hat in hand.

Nicklas stares him down, the blondest cowboy in an old saloon.

“Okay, TJ,” Braden says the next morning, surrounded by his work. “Fine.” He scowls and breathes out sharply, sending out a white puff of icing sugar like dragon smoke.

“He believes you,” Nate translates from the other end of the kitchen. TJ’s pretty sure Nate doesn’t work for him at all, but TJ’s never been sure how to tell Braden he doesn’t have hiring privileges. But he’s willing to come in before dawn on a Tuesday to bake biscuits or when someone else is sick, and he’s the only one allowed to touch the cast iron aebleskiver pan now, since Evgeny tried to put it in the microwave.

“Wait. Really?” TJ says, around a roll.

“Yes,” Braden says, glaring at Nate. “He is an objectively perfect person.”

 

Sometimes when TJ’s busy on the phone, trying to get ahold of Barry and remind him that he owns a coffee shop, he sees Nicklas pulling out workbooks, which he thinks from the covers might be Russian language textbooks. TJ’s pretty sure he’s planning to go into international diplomacy, and he can’t actually point to an objective difference between him and all the other stiff strangers in light blue suits who rush in from offices in the Capitol every afternoon, but TJ would like to do almost anything Nicky told him to do and he thinks that’s not just him, so he’ll probably do well. Hopefully not all the way in Russia, though.

“He’s really clever,” TJ admits one day, wistfully, as they get ready to open.

“You knew that,” Marcus says. “You’ve said.” He’s looking frayed around the edges, but in TJ’s defense he came in that way, and when he shambled towards the coffee TJ had hauled him back and made him a quick hot chocolate, sticking on a to-go lid so Marcus can pretend he’s drinking coffee and not two straight shots of whipped cream. TJ has a preliminary theory that some people have a dietary need for whipped cream, and Marcus is one.

“Puppies and Andre are cute whenever you see them and it’s still news,” TJ points out.

Marcus lowers his to-go cup, drawing offended dignity around him, and swirls off like an old-school Dracula with a faint cream ‘stache.

 

Once a week Nicklas stays, settling in the corner with a laptop and plugging in his headphones. TJ assumes he’s Skyping home, and he’s careful not to listen, though Nicklas doesn’t talk much anyway. He watches the screen almost fiercely, the big blocky headphones making it even more obvious how his cheeks crease when he smiles.

TJ sighs—not, like, at him. Just at the barrenness of a life in which TJ has a dozen emails from their flour distributor in front of him, and absolutely no sexts from Nicky.

Nicklas is finally saying something, and then there’s a furious rustling as Evgeny emerges from the curtain on the counter under the milk dispenser.

Now TJ thinks about it, that didn’t sound like Swedish normally does.

“Oh,” Evgeny says, blinking over at Nicklas, and then, “Oh,” with a full stop, looking up at TJ.

“You know what,” TJ says. He’s suddenly tired, and tired of putting his favorite employee in the position of wondering whether to tell him something apparently private about his favorite customer. “Don’t. Could you get this?” he adds, motioning Evgeny over to the counter as a couple of college women come in, brushing off snow and clearly wondering whether to ask about the Russian on the floor.

TJ leaves Evgeny one-finger typing at the register and goes out to sit on the clear end of the neighboring warehouse’s loading dock, chew gum, and inhale other people’s cigarette smoke. A little snow drifts down around him, while taxi horns and Congressional interns shriek at each other out on the street. TJ blows a bleak bubble.

 

  
“Hey,” Nicklas says, a few weeks later. It’s busily quiet in the shop, coming up on 7 o’clock, full up with college students and young professionals, so he can say it softly. TJ isn’t sure why he does, though. He holds up a power cord, looking embarrassed, and when TJ peeks under the tables he can see that all the outlets are spilling over with cords and chargers.

“Sure, here,” TJ says, moving Marcus’ potted spider plant so he can use the free space on the outlet they’re using to run Christmas lights over the counter.

Nicklas says, “Thank you,” and checks on his computer, but he doesn’t move to sit down yet.

“Anything else I can get you?” TJ asks, smiling at him, and Nicklas’ mouth quirks back.

“I think maybe. Um, you know the little one—” he makes a gesture which TJ eventually interprets to mean Evgeny, “talk to me, yeah?”

“God, no,” TJ says.

“He misses home sometimes, I think,” Nicklas says idly, and taps his fingers on the counter. “I only know a little Russian, though.”

“That’s nice!” TJ says, helplessly and hopelessly cheery.

“Okay, so he didn’t tell you about my fiancé,” Nicklas says. “He’s Russian, so.” Flabbergastingly, he seems to think this is a good end for that sentence. Or maybe not; he’s still leaning in over the counter, obviously aware they’re not alone for this conversation but almost like he wants TJ to feel like they are. Up close he’s built like a refrigerator, so it’s working on TJ partly because he can’t see half the freshmen on their computers anymore around Nicky’s shoulders, and partly because he isn’t close enough to feel the warmth coming off Nicky but knows he easily could be.

“Oh,” TJ says. “That’s nice. Thanks for telling me, man,” because distance is hard, even when it isn’t all the way to Russia. Though it’ll be less, whenever Nicklas moves back to Sweden.

Nicky’s looking at him directly, and it occurs to TJ that all the times Nicklas hasn’t met his eyes he’s never thought he was shy. It had felt like Nicklas was politely observing a boundary most people didn’t think about, as if it would have been assuming some permission TJ hadn’t given him. Now that Nicky is, TJ knows he wouldn’t want Nicky to if they were strangers. He isn’t going to look away until Nicklas does, or look back until Nicky does, caught and rapt reading every shift of his face and the easy authority in his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Nicklas says. “He, uh, hates coffee, but he’s great. He’s been asking, why I’m in here so much when I call, maybe I’m doing too much alone in America and not getting enough time for eating right.”

“Fuck, that is pretty great,” TJ says, mostly by accident, because he’s found himself falling asleep a few times wondering about the same thing.

Nicky clearly resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Okay, yeah. I told him that’s not why I’m here all the time, though.”

“Oh,” TJ says, and then, “Oh! Oh, hey. Hey.”

Nicky offers a hand, a quick but almost cautious gesture, and TJ draws his fingertips over Nicky’s palm before Nicky’s fingers catch and curl around his.

“Want to come in for coffee with me sometime?” TJ says.

“Yeah,” Nicky says, and his whole face blooms as he smiles. When he leans in all the way over the register and TJ’s chaos of account books to kiss his cheek, TJ might hear angels singing. More probably it’s just Nate, with accompanying drum sounds by Evgeny, who’s gotten ahold of the aebleskiver pan again.

 


End file.
